bale wire jars

[Muggles]

The only food I am any good at eating with chop sticks is sushi.

[hrhofmann]

Don Y should look into using an "O" ring to replace a gasket that he does not like.

[Don Y]

I eat with the tools appropriate for the meal in question. E.g., oriental dishes I use chopsticks; shrimp I use a shrimp fork; deep dish pizza a knife and fork; NY-style pizza my hands; etc. It just doesn't "feel right" using something else.

[Don Y]

If *you* are the only one eating the contents, I suspect it is best to let *you* decide how you want to eat them! :> We're not operating a restaurant here... (and we *do* wash our hands before and after touching foodstuffs)

[Don Y]

We collect glass jars. I have boxes of them in assorteed (small) sizes in the garage as there is ALWAYS something that can benefit from storage in a jar -- and a glass jar being better than a plastic one (especially if you have to incur the cost of storing them; why store a plastic one if you can store a glass one in the same space?).

OTOH, we *do* use plastic jars for our citrus juice harvest. This year, we'll be using 32oz Gatorage jars for most of the OJ; ~12oz "vitamin bottle" containers for the lemon juice (anything more than that risks going bad as it takes several days to use that much, normally); 4oz "vitamin bottle" (different vitamins) containers for the lime juice (because we only use lime juice in small quantities).

In the case of the Gatorade jars, those will get discarded after this one season of use (too hard to clean the pulp out with those narrow mouths). The lemon and lime containers will be reused as we strain the pulp before filling them (not fond of pulp in lemon or lime juice!)

It would be impractical to wait for the sauce to cool before packaging it. I make 16q at a time (takes a whole day to cook) so the sauce at the bottom of the sauce pan is still steaming hot when the sauce at the top of the pan has cooled (despite frequent "turning" after the heat has been removed). It's not a good idea to let any foods sit at "room temperature" for any period of time (i.e., while waiting for the stuff at the bottom of the pot to cool). So, I move it into small containers and the bottom shelf of the refrigerator as soon as practical. Once it has cooled *to* room temperature in the refrigerator, I clean the condensate from the underside of the container lids (I like my sauce thick so take every opportunity to DISCARD moisture), seal them and move them to the bottom of the freezer chest in the garage (where they will cool much more quickly)

OTOH, I've been using the same containers for 20+ years JUST for sauce so I figure some staining is bound to happen! :>

Wide is a relative term. Most jars like Mason (Ball) have 3.375" openings. That's just not practical. Would you eat potato chips from such a jar? (reaching *in* to fetch them) Or cookies?

Again, the openings on most wide-mouth jars aren't very wide at all. The openings on the Maraschino cherry jars I mentioned are just under 4" inner diameter. That's about the smallest I can accommodate with my hands.

The other problem with glass jars and *traditional* covers is that they tend to have coarse threads -- so, just a fraction of a turn to close them or open them. This typically means they are harder to open and close (cuz you want them to fully engage their seals) -- especially when they are so large that your (old) hand can't closed into a strong grasping position.

["Don, can you open this for me?" or "Why do you always put the lids on SO TIGHT??" etc.]

That was the beauty of the wire bale jars -- no twisting required (to open *or* close). Just flip up (or down) the latch and the lid moves accordingly!

[Muggles]

I'd use a spoon or fork for most everything, but sushi it just seems right to use chop sticks!